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While the Light Lasts
While the Light Lasts
Agatha Christie
¥58.47
Some of Agatha Christie’s earliest stories – including her very first – which show the Queen of Crime in the making… A macabre recurring dream … revenge against a blackmailer … jealousy, infidelity and a tortured conscience … a stolen gemstone … the haunting attraction of an ancient relic … a race against time … a tragic love triangle … a body in a box … an unexpected visitor from beyond the grave… Nine quintessential examples of Agatha Christie's brilliance are contained in this collection of early short stories - including the very first one she ever wrote - and provide a unique glimpse of the Queen of Crime in the making.
Darkness Under the Sun
Darkness Under the Sun
Dean Koontz
¥10.10
An exclusive novella, available only as an eBook, from the international bestselling master of suspense. The chilling account of a pivotal encounter between innocence and ultimate malice, Darkness Under the Sun is the perfect read for Halloween – or for any haunted night – and reveals a secret, fateful turning point in the career of Alton Turner Blackwood, the killer at the dark heart of What the Night Knows, the forthcoming novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Dean Koontz. There once was a killer who knew the night, its secrets and rhythms. How to hide within its shadows. When to hunt. He roamed from town to town, city to city, choosing his prey for their beauty and innocence. His cruelties were infinite, his humanity long since forfeit. But still…he had not yet discovered how to make his special mark among monsters, how to come fully alive as Death. This is the story of how he learned those things, and of what we might do to insure that he does not visit us. Darkness Under the Sun is as chilling as it is unforgettable. It is available exclusively for download in electronic book format.
The Unexpected Guest
The Unexpected Guest
Agatha Christie,Charles Osborne
¥58.47
A young man, broken down in the fog, witnesses a murder he is asked to conceal… A full-length novel adapted by Charles Osborne from Agatha Christie’s acclaimed play. When a stranger runs his car into a ditch in dense fog in South Wales and makes his way to an isolated house, he discovers a woman standing over the dead body of her wheelchair-bound husband, gun in her hand. She admits to murder, and the unexpected guest offers to help her concoct a cover story. But is it possible that Laura Warwick did not commit the murder after all? If so, who is she shielding? The victim’s young half-brother or his dying matriarchal mother? Laura’s lover? Perhaps the father of the little boy killed in an accident for which Warwick was responsible? The house seems full of possible suspects… THE UNEXPECTED GUEST is considered to be one of the finest of Christie’s plays. Hailed as ‘another Mousetrap’ when it opened on 12 August 1958 in the West End, it ran for 604 performances over the succeeding 18 months and has been staged many times around the world over the last 40 years.
Hello America
Hello America
J. G. Ballard
¥63.18
A terrifying vision of the future from one of the twentieth century’s most renowned writers – J. G. Ballard, author of ‘Empire of the Sun’ and ‘Crash’. Following the energy crisis of the late twentieth-century America has been abandoned. Now, a century later, an expedition from Europe returns to the deserted continent. But America is unrecognisable – the Bering Strait has been dammed and the whole continent has become a desert, populated by isolated natives and the bizarre remnants of a disintegrated culture. The expedition sets off from Manhattan on a cross-continent journey, through Holiday Inns and abandoned theme parks. They will uncover a shocking new power in the heart of Las Vegas in this unique vision of our world transformed. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Ned Beauman, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman and Martin Amis) and brand-new cover designs.
e: A Novel
e: A Novel
Matt Beaumont
¥53.76
An unforgettable first novel, an author to shout about, a campaign to ensure that everyone knows this is the funniest, sharpest read of the year. Consisting entirely of staff emails, e spends a fortnight in the company of Miller Shanks, an advertising agency that scales dizzying peaks of incompetence. Among the cast are a CEO with an MBA from the Joseph Stalin School of Management, a Creative Director who is a genius, if only in his own head, designers and copywriters driven by breasts, beer or Bach Flower Remedies, and secretaries who drip honey and spit blood. The novel is a tapestry of insincerity, backstabbing and bare-arsed bitchiness: that is to say, everyday office politics. Oh yes, and there is some work to be done too – the quest for advertising’s Eldorado, the Coca-Cola account. e is sleazy, scurrilous and scabrously funny. It also contains a first-class joke about the Pope and sound advice on the maintenance of industrial carpet tiles.
Thunder Raker (Agent Alfie, Book 1)
Thunder Raker (Agent Alfie, Book 1)
Justin Richards
¥22.46
A hilarious new series for younger readers, following the misadventures of an ordinary boy at an extraordinary school for young spies… Jake's dad is head of the Secret Service. Alice's dad is a double agent. Harry's dad has infiltrated SPUD – the Secret Partners for Undertaking Destruction. And Alfie's dad… is a postman. Thunder Raker Manor is a very exclusive school. All the pupils are there because their parents or guardians are agents and spies. All except one. Because eight-year-old Alfie's dad isn't anything to do with the secret services. He's the local postman who just reckoned that Thunder Raker Manor was a great school. So when the Head Teacher receives a letter from the Prime Minister saying that Alfie has been given a special place and will start immediately, he isn't to know that Alfie's dad wrote it and slipped it in with the 'special' post… Now Alfie has to get to grips with Thunder Raker’s unusual curriculum and some even stranger new friends. He’s got classes in camouflage (if anyone can ever find Mr Trick) and Assassination (only kids keep going missing from Miss Fortune’s class). And he’s now in permanent danger from SPUD agents. But to his surprise, Alfie finds that he might just be quite good at this spying game…
Swinging: The Games Your Neighbours Play
Swinging: The Games Your Neighbours Play
Mark Brendon
¥95.75
The Games Your Neighbours Play Your neighbours are doing it. Your relatives are doing it. Even your colleagues are doing it. (Especially your colleagues.) But what is swinging? Despite being an activity enjoyed by millions worldwide (4 million in the US alone), little is known about the enormous subculture that exists. Turned on to swinging by a chance series of events in his life, author Mark Brendon found it to be stimulating, satisfying and emotionally rewarding, an experience totally at odds with the often cynical and always inaccurate picture presented by the media. Opening with an orgy scene where a tetchy husband is urging his otherwise-engaged wife to ‘hurry up, the babysitter’s waiting’ this revealing and edifying book is sure to shock some but aims to paint a realistic picture of the relative normality of this style of living. Filled with case studies, conversations and bon mots Brendon expertly crafts a fascinating book that manages to be an absorbing take on social history and a stimulating work of erotica all rolled into one. Honest, funny, thoughtful and erotic the author entertains and enlightens the reader as he describes attending parties held in clubs, on beaches and in private homes throughout Britain and beyond. He explores why, where and how your neighbours swing, outlines the subculture’s history, principles and rules and looks to a future in which swinging might just save some of our most cherished institutions – including marriage itself. Thoughtful, racy and funny, this fascinating book will appeal to experienced swingers and 'vanillas' alike. This is the only accurate guide available; a remarkable and fascinating insight into the world of swingers by a skilled and accomplished writer.
The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva
The Rise and Fall of a Domestic Diva
Sarah May
¥63.77
The queen of the black-hearted soap opera is back! Welcome to the upwardly mobile Prendergast Road… On Prendergast Road, deep in Nappy Valley, among olive trees in terracotta, lower fuel emissions, Lithuanian prostitutes, teenage drug dealers, stalkers and soaring house prices, five desperate women wait… The progeny of the IVF generation is ready to start school and only one of them is destined to get a place in Nappy Valley's most oversubscribed cradle of learning. How far will these women go to get that place? Follow Kate Hunter into the depths of her impeccably honed life, as she struggles to maintain the fa?ade of perfection. When exactly did life become a life class? Is happiness overrated? Is it just possible that beneath the flawless sheen of her friends' and neighbours' amazingly trouble-free lives, beneath the freshly-ironed shirts and home-grown veg, lie the same half-truths, the same uncertainties and the same desperation to keep up with the Joneses…?
Me and My Brothers
Me and My Brothers
Charlie Kray,Robin McGibbon
¥63.18
An updated edition of the bestselling autobiography of Charlie Kray, elder brother of the Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, who are brought to the screen this autumn in a major motion picture. Charlie Kray was the only person who knew the truth behind the terrifying violence of his notorious twin brothers, Ronnie and Reggie. In his dying days, reflecting on how the Kray name destroyed his life, Charlie reveals what he really thought about the twins - and why they treated him so badly. Today, 40 years after the arrests that ended their so-called reign of terror, the power the Krays wielded is part of criminal folklore - and the fascination with them lives on. Charlie knew them better than anyone - from the extortion racket that provided riches beyond their dreams and the sexual liaison that took them into the corridors of power to the murderous mayhem the twins embarked on as they came to see themselves as beyond the law. In this fully updated edition of his best-selling autobiography, Charlie Kray reveals a side of Ronnie and Reggie that not even their closest henchmen ever saw.
All of These People: A Memoir
All of These People: A Memoir
Fergal Keane
¥80.25
In a memoir of staggering power and candour, award-winning journalist Fergal Keane addresses his experience of wars of different kinds, some very public and others acutely personal. During his years of reporting from the world's most savage and turbulent regions, Fergal Keane has witnessed the violence of the South African townships and the terror in Rwanda, the most extreme kinds of human behaviour, the horror of genocide and the bravery of peacekeepers faced with overwhelming odds. As one of the BBC's leading correspondents, he recounts extraordinary encounters on the front lines. Alongside his often brutal experiences in the field, he also describes unflinchingly the challenges and demons he has faced in his personal life growing up in Ireland. Keane’s existence as a war reporter is all that we imagine: frantic filing of reports and dodging shells, interspersed with rest in bombed-out hotels and concrete shelters. Life in such vulnerable areas of the globe is emotionally draining, but full of astonishing moments of camaraderie and human bravery. And so this is also a memoir of the human connections, at once simple and complex, that are made in extreme circumstances. These pages are filled with the memories of remarkable people. At the heart of Fergal Keane's story is a descent into and recovery from alcoholism, spanning two generations, father and son; a different kind of war, but as much part of the journey of the last twenty-five years as the bullets and bombs.
The Spoilers / Juggernaut
The Spoilers / Juggernaut
Desmond Bagley
¥61.51
Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer set in the Middle East and Africa. THE SPOILERS When film tycoon Robert Hellier loses his daughter to heroin, he declares war on the drug pedlars, the faceless overlords whose greed supplies the world with its deadly pleasures. London drug specialist Nicholas Warren is called upon to organise an expedition to the Middle East to track down and destroy them - but with a hundred million dollars' worth of heroin at stake, Warren knows he will have to use methods as deadly as his prey… JUGGERNAUT It was no ordinary juggernaut. Longer than a football pitch, weighing 550 tons, and moving at just five miles per hour, its job - and that of troubleshooter Neil Mannix - is to move a giant transformer across an oil-rich African state. But when Nyala erupts in civil war, Mannix's juggernaut is at the centre of the conflict - a target of ambush and threat, with no way to run and nowhere to hide… Includes a unique bonus - The House of the Lions, a story written exclusively for Desmond Bagley's Christmas house guests in the 1960s.
Running Blind / The Freedom Trap
Running Blind / The Freedom Trap
Desmond Bagley
¥72.99
Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer about a notorious Russian double agent, Slade, set in Iceland and Malta. RUNNING BLIND The assignment begins with a simple errand - a parcel to deliver. But to Alan Stewart, standing on a deserted road in Iceland with a murdered man at his feet, it looks anything but simple. The desolate terrain is obstacle enough. But when Stewart realises he has been double-crossed and that the opposition is gaining ground, his simple mission seems impossible… THE FREEDOM TRAP The Scarperers, a brilliantly organised gang which gets long-term inmates out of prison, spring a notorious Russian double agent. The trail leads Owen Stannard to Malta, and to the suave killer masterminding the gang. Face to face at last with his opponents, Stannard must try to outwit both men - who have nothing to lose and everything to gain by his death… Includes a unique bonus - A Matter of Months, a previously unpublished short story about a murder in a casino.
The Snow Tiger / Night of Error
The Snow Tiger / Night of Error
Desmond Bagley
¥65.16
Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer set in New Zealand and the Pacific. THE SNOW TIGER Fifty-four people died in the avalanche that ripped apart a small New Zealand mining town. But the enquiry which follows unleashes more destructive power than the snowfall. As the survivors tell their stories, they reveal a community so divided that all warnings of danger went unheeded. At the centre of the storm is Ian Ballard, whose life depends upon being able to clear his name… NIGHT OF ERROR When Mark Trevelyan dies on a journey to a remote Pacific atoll, the verdict that it was natural causes doesn't convince his brother, Mike. The series of violent attacks that follows only adds to his suspicions. Just two clues - a notebook in code and a lump of rock - are enough to trigger off a hazardous expedition, and a violent confrontation far from civilization… Includes a unique bonus - Desmond Bagley's personal account of the writing of Snow Tiger.
Goodbye Mickey Mouse
Goodbye Mickey Mouse
Len Deighton
¥45.62
In Goodbye Mickey Mouse Len Deighton has written his best novel yet: a brilliant, multi-dimensional picture of what it is to be at war… and what it was to be in love in the England of 1944. Goodbye Mickey Mouse is Deighton’s fourteenth novel and a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943-4. At the centre of the novel are two young men: the deeply reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother, estranged son of a deskbound colonel, and the cocky Lieutenant Mickey Morse, well on his way to becoming America’s Number One Flying Ace. Alike only in their courage, they forge a bond of friendship in battle with far-reaching consequences for themselves, and for the future of those they love.
Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero
Men of Honour: Trafalgar and the Making of the English Hero
Adam Nicolson
¥90.84
The Battle of Trafalgar can claim to be one of the most known of the great human events. In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson takes one of the greatest identifiable heroes in British history, Horatio Nelson, and examines the broader themes of heroism, violence and virtue. Trafalgar gripped the nineteenth century imagination like no other battle: it was a moment of both transcendent fulfilment and unmatched despair. It was a drama of such violence and sacrifice that the concept of total war may be argued to start from there. It finished the global ambitions of a European tyrant but culminated in the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson, the greatest hero of the era. This book fuses the immediate intensity of the battle with the deeper currents that were running at the time. It has a three-part framework: the long, slow six hour morning before the battle; the afternoon itself of terror, death and destruction; and the shocked, exultant and sobered aftermath, which finds its climax at Nelson's funeral in a snowy London the following January. Adam Nicolson examines the concept of heroes and heroism, both then and now, using Nelson as one of the greatest examples. A man of complexity and contradiction, he was a supreme administrator of ships and men; overflowing with humanity, charm and love but also capable of astonishing ruthlessness and ferocity. Nelson's own courage, vanity, ruthlessness and sweetness made him one of the great identifiable heroes of English history. In Men of Honour, Adam Nicolson also traces the stories of many unknown people of the day. He tackles the grand theme of heroism; the move from the age of reason to the age of romanticism; and examines a battle that was not only a uniquely well-documented crisis in human affairs but also a lens on its own time. Adam Nicolson does not approach Trafalgar as a military historian. His book gives a wonderfully immediate recreation of both the battle itself and its aftermath in a rich, concrete and intellectually engaging style.
Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice
J. A. Jance
¥74.65
New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance brings her two best-loved series characters together as Beaumont and Brady investigate a pair of cases that cross state lines Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont is working a series of murders in which six young women have been wrapped in tarps, doused with gasoline and set on fire. Their charred remains have been scattered around various dump sites, creating a grisly pattern of death across western Washington. At the same time, thousands of miles away in the Arizona desert, Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady is looking into a homicide in which the elderly caretaker of an ATV park was run over and left to die. All the man has left behind is his dog, who is the improbable witness to some kind of turf warfare – or something more sinister. But, here, as the threads of their two seemingly seperate cases wind together, Beaumont and Brady must put aside echoes of their shared past as they are once again drawn into an orbit of deception. Except this time it’s not just their own lives that are in danger but those of the people closest to them as well.
Abandoned: The true story of a little girl who didn’t belong
Abandoned: The true story of a little girl who didn’t belong
Anya Peters
¥45.62
Separated from her real mother at birth, Anya grew up in terror of her drunken bullying uncle. Beaten, humiliated and sexually abused by him from the age of six, she thought her life couldn't get worse. But one day it did. "I was used to Daddy screaming 'whore's child' at me, over and over again. But I couldn't get used to what he made me do." Anya was too terrified to tell anybody about what her uncle did to her. But then he got careless and started abusing her in front of the other children. When her brothers started calling her a 'whore', Anya cracked and all her terrible secrets came pouring out. Anya had always coped because there was one woman who loved her deeply, her 'Mummy'. But this time love was not enough. One morning 'Mummy' just left. Determined to make a new life, Anya buried her feelings and tried to move on. But when she ended up homeless, living in her car, she knew she had to face her past if she was ever going to find happiness and security again. Top 10 Sunday Times Bestseller, Abandoned is Anya's inspirational story of her fight to find love, acceptance and a place to belong.
Little Bird of Heaven
Little Bird of Heaven
Joyce Carol Oates
¥57.09
‘A writer of extraordinary strengths’ Guardian Set in the mythical small city of Sparta, New York, this searing, vividly rendered exploration of the mysterious conjunction of erotic romance and tragic violence in late 20th-century America. When a young wife and mother named Zoe Kruller is found brutally murdered, the Sparta police target two primary suspects: her estranged husband Delray and her longtime lover Eddy Diehl. In turn, the Krullers's son Aaron and Eddy's daughter Krista become obsessed with one another, each believing the other's father is guilty. Told in halves in the very different voices of Krista and Aaron, Little Bird of Heaven is classic Joyce Carol Oates, in which the lyricism of intense sexual love is intertwined with the anguish of loss, and tenderness is barely distinguishable from cruelty. By the novel's end, the fated lovers, meeting again as adults, are at last ready to exorcise the ghosts of the past and come to terms with their legacy of guilt, misplaced love and redemptive yearning. With Little Bird of Heaven, Joyce Carol Oates once again confirms her place as one of the most outstanding writers at work today.
Sacrament
Sacrament
Clive Barker
¥68.67
A famous photographer lying in a coma holds the key to the salvation of the world. But first he must travel back into the traumatic events of his childhood. Will Rabjohns has everything. He’s handsome, he’s rich, and he’s revered as the world’s greatest wildlife photographer. He’s also a haunted man, driven to risk his life for his art – to capture the raw tragedy of the wild, the beauty of nature’s violence. After a near fatal encounter with a polar bear, he lies in a coma. There he must relive a central childhood memory: a meeting with ancient and terrible forces which revealed to him the mystery at the heart of nature. And he realizes that if he awakes, he must confront the darkness of his past and wage a war, not only for his own soul, but for the soul of the planet and every animal that breathes upon it.
Witnessing Waterloo: 24 Hours, 48 Lives, A World Forever Changed
Witnessing Waterloo: 24 Hours, 48 Lives, A World Forever Changed
David Crane
¥73.58
‘Of all the books marking the bicentenary Waterloo, this has to be the best’ Spectator ‘A book to die for’ Evening Standard From Samuel Johnson Prize shortlisted author David Crane, this is a breathtaking portrait of the Britain that fought the battle of Waterloo. As Wellington’s rain-sodden army retreated towards an obscure valley called Waterloo, the men and women of Britain were still going to the theatre and science lectures, working in the fields and the factories, reading and writing books and sermons, painting their pictures and sitting in front of Lord Elgin’s marbles. David Crane’s stunning freeze-frame of Britain on this day of momentous change shifts hour by hour between Britain and Belgium. The Britain that fought Waterloo – its radicals and patriots, artisans and aristocrats, prisoners and poets – appears through the smoke of battle and the mythology of Waterloo in this magnificent and original tracing of the endless, overlapping connections between people’s lives.
The Lesson of the Master
The Lesson of the Master
Norman Thomas di Giovanni
¥34.14
A collection of essays on Jorge Luis Borges by his long-time friend and collaborator. Jorge Luis Borges - Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer - is widely considered one of the giants of 20th-century world literature. Norman Thomas di Giovanni worked alongside Borges for a number of years creating English translations of his work, the only translations personally overseen by Borges himself. In The Lesson of the Master, a memoir and essays, he writes about his time with Borges but also offers us a unique insight on the man and his work. It is an indispensable volume for Borges readers and his growing legion of students and scholars.